Dancing Without Rhythm

I think I might have forgotten a little of why I started blogging in the first place.

Today I have some kid stories.

About their names....I just don't trust myself to be on the ball enough to call them something other than their names. I'm lame like that. And I was SO tempted to just become Lucy myself and call the kids Fred and Ethel cuz that's funny, but I know my limits.
So I decided on Benja and Avee. That's what they are called around here, so it's fitting.

Avee has managed to commandeer the one chair in our house that resembles a throne. High back, arm rests, best view of the action in both the living room and the kitchen. She will sit/stand/hang on it for an hour at a time, shouting her one syllable orders. "Kaaaah!" "Nooooooo!" "Baaaaaaaa!" Today, much to her chagrin, we finished our business in her court before she was ready to dismiss us. As we all moved to different parts of the house, she remained on her throne yelling for her subjects to return. As the true ruler she is, it never occurred to her to lower herself before the common, and find Erica at the computer or me trapped under 17 loads of laundry, or Ben racing Thomas through every tunnel known to a 3 year-old's bedroom. Her loss.

Yesterday at church she tried to push Erica (my 13 year old niece visiting us) off the pew. Perhaps she thought there was one too many adorable girls at worship. I mumbled an apology to Erica about "Her Highness" being out of control. Erica reminded me of a conversation we had when I was pregnant with Avee. J had picked out the name even before we knew we were having Avee. I mentioned to Erica that the name Avee meant "Ruler of Elves". I didn't much care for that, and name meanings are important to me. I have since found a more suitable name meaning, but for the longest time, that was all I could find. I just pictured a bad scene from Lord of the Rings or a little midget dictator with pointy ears. Well, minus the ears, we got the latter. I had completely forgotten about the "undesireable" name meaning. I have this unexplainably petite little thing who thinks she rules the universe.

Today we are puttering around shifting too-small clothes for just-a-little-too-big clothes, elminating all the dumb happy meal toys (I'm sure I only have 2 or 3 buckets full, trying to get organized. Avee is loving the piles of things to dig through and undo as I try futilely to accomplish something. She has actually removed wet clothes from the dryer and put them back in the washer as I am reaching for another handful of wet clothes. What is THAT!?

Benja got to go with Daddio to drop off Uncle Sam at his scout camp. They were gone all morning and when they returned, I thought I'd be a nice wife and make a healthy, low-calorie smoothie (J weighed himself yesterday and couldn't stop talking about it the rest of the day. Yeah well, go see what this dude ate last week....and I didn't have the heart to tell him that the number he was horrified to see on his scale is a number I fantasize of seeing on mine). Well, I offered and he declined. I was sure he didn't understand me so I offered again. Denied. Maybe he thinks I want him to make the smoothie---gracias, no. Then I did what I have done a hundred times in our relationship. I figure things out a little later, but without any help from him.
"You stopped at Chic Fil A, didn't you?"
Eyes flicker, hesitation...."No, I didn't."
"McDonalds?"
"Yes."
Sheesh.

Ben has had a sort of Dr Suess induced tourettes today. 2 weeks ago my mom read "Green Eggs and Ham" to him and he's obsessed over owning the book since then. So I bought it a few days ago and have had to read it to him 572 times in the last 6 days. But today he's just been happy to clutch the book while he watches Thomas or plays with his cars or eats watermelon and just shout out "I DO NOT WANT THEM IN A BOX, I DO NOT WANT THEM WITH A MOUSE, I DO NOT, I DO NOT, I DO NOT LIKE YOUR HAT!" For those of you not well versed in children's literature, the hat part is from "Go Dog Go" another favorite of his. It's all so fitting for where he's at in life right now. He's in a very contradictory stage. It just makes sense that yelling contradictions, whether in a book or in his real life, is where his real focus is. A common conversation these days will go something like this, "Mom what are you making for dinner?"
"Rice and chicken"
"Nuh-UHH!"
At this point we both just laugh because there's little else to do.

Posted by Angela on Monday, July 03, 2006 at 7/03/2006 | Permalink